If the father of my children had deceived me and hurt me in the worst of ways, leaving me destitute and in a ruin with our children, what could a stranger do to me? And a stranger from a completely different world? The list of possibilities was endless.
‘You know, I have never in my whole life met someone that I’ve connected to like I have with you, and in such a short time,’ he said when we got back to the house.
‘But… but we argue all the time…’
He laughed. ‘It’s good arguing, very different from the “It’s you turn to take out the trash” kind of arguing. It’s sexy…’
I gulped and stood up, somewhat rattled and confused. A key in the front door turned and Chloe stopped in the entrance hall, instantly alert. In one jump I put the table between Luke and myself.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ she said. ‘You’re traffic-light red.’
‘Am I?’ I asked as I flicked the kettle on for something to distract me. It wasn’t every day of the week that a girl got kissed by a Hollywood superstar now, was it? ‘It’s just the cold.’
‘Mum – it’s the summer.’
‘Let’s have a cuppa and you guys can tell me what you’ve been up to.’
‘You first,’ Chloe challenged, her eyes swinging back and forth between me and Luke who busied himself with the cake tin. Bugger me, the kid knew by just looking at me. I must have had that rabbit caught in the headlights look again.
I shrugged. ‘We checked out some locations. It’s going very well.’
‘This is going to be a great movie. Your mom wrote a fantastic book,’ Luke said as Chloe reached for a piece of cake.
She shrugged. ‘Never read them.’
Luke glanced at me, at a loss for words for once.
After dinner, and at least two hours of Ben flicking through documentary channels and Chloe complaining she wanted to watch MTV, I put an end to it. I was too jittery to put up with anything tonight.
‘It’s bedtime,’ I said. Not because I was sleepy, but I didn’t want Chloe to get bored fighting with Ben and turn on me with her accusatory innuendos. The kid had ESP. And I needed to go to my own room, away from his influence and charm. And mull over today’s developments.
At that, Minnie and Callie, who were observing our exchange with alert eyes lest we dropped any food, shot to their feet and happily trotted to their night baskets under the staircase.
Chloe shrugged and climbed up the stairs, half-muttering a goodnight for Luke’s sake.
‘Goodnight, Mum,’ Ben whispered, wrapping his little arms around my neck and kissing my cheek. He smelled so clean, so fresh. I wrapped my arms around his little body and squeezed him tight. ‘I love you a million gazillion, baby…’
‘And I love you a gazillion million, Mum.’
He raised a thumb up at Luke, a gesture he’d picked up from him.
‘Night, buddy boy, sleep tight,’ Luke answered as we watched him slowly climb the stairs.
Luke took my hands and pulled me close again with a broad grin. ‘Bedtime – my sentiments exactly.’
‘No. I meant, it’s time for me to go to bed.’
‘But it’s early. At least share a bottle of wine with me.’
‘Oh, no, no, no,’ I countered. ‘I’m really very tired. I’ll see you in the morning, Luke.’
He stopped, disappointed, and I wondered just how many women had ever said no to him. Probably very few.
‘I’m a gentleman, Nina. Nothing that you don’t want will happen,’ Luke said. ‘But I’ll sure as hell make sure you want it.’
God, I was so out of practice. Actually, I didn’t think I’d ever even been good at this game at all. I was only nineteen when I got pregnant. The boyfriends I’d had until then were not actually even men, but just boys, really. Phil had been twenty and he was the oldest of them all. Luke was a man.
‘See you tomorrow,’ I said as I scooped up my mobile.
‘’Night,’ he whispered, kissing the side of my face. ‘Sleep tight…’
‘Uh-huh,’ I croaked as I turned my back and dashed up the stairs all the way up to the safety of my bedroom.
By the time I washed and got into my nightie, my heart was pounding like a girl’s after her first date. What had just happened?
Luke wants to sleep with you, you silly cow, a voice inside me answered. And… you are not just flattered. True. I was also terrified.
I had to admit that. But how did it make me really feel? Good about myself? Was I only succumbing to Luke’s Hollywood charm because he was a handsome famous actor, or to the human being behind the sexy face and body? And what a cat in hell’s chance did I have – me, a normal single, frazzled, bedazzled mother of two with more problems than she could count – of having a real relationship with him, despite all his nice words? Would it even work between us? Would he move Jessica to Cornwall to be with me and the kids? Highly unlikely. I just couldn’t see how it would work.
There you go, said that evil voice inside me again. It wasn’t a marriage proposal. Lighten up, have a little fun.
Ah, said the angel on my right shoulder. The last time you had “fun” like that was when you got pregnant with Chloe. As much as we love children, we don’t want another unplanned pregnancy, do we?
Leave her alone, said the little devil on my left shoulder. A little sex never killed anyone.
I don’t know which little spirit won, because by that time I was so exhausted from
